Bottle-stopper



Oct. 15, 1968 KOUICHI HAYASHIDA 3,

BOTTLE- STOPPER 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed May 5, 1966 .rI/IIIIIII/ Ill INVENTOR. KOUICHI HAYASHIDA BY MALLINCKRODT'E 8 MALLINCKRODT ATTORNEYS Oct. 15, 1968 KOUICHI HAYASHIDA 3,

BOTTLE- STOPPER 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed May 5, 1966 VI/IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII/l 1', l I 7 I Z g INVENTOR. KOUICHI HAYASHIDA BY MALLINCKRODT 8x MALLINCKRODT ATTORNEYS United States Patent Of'ice 3,405,830 BOTTLE-STOPPER Kouichi Hayashida, 651 Kayano, Kohryo-machi, Kitakatsuragi-gun, Nara-ken, Japan Filed May 5, 1966, Ser. No. 547,809 Claims priority, application Japan, Oct. 23, 1965, 40/ 86,424 4 Claims. (Cl. 215-40) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A bottle-stopped molded integrally from flexible and resilient material to provide a cover portion and a stopper portion. The cover portion includes a disc, from the lower surface of which the stopper portion depends concentrically. The stopper portion includes an upper cylindrical member of lesser diameter than the disc and terminates in an outwardly flared skirt member. The transition between cylindrical member and skirt member is marked by an abrupt change in wall thickness that establishes a circumferential line of bend on which the skirt member bends backwardly when the bottle-stopped is applied to a bottle in a manner such that the skirt member bears against the bottle margin surrounding the bottle opening as the bottle-stopper is pushed into place. Bending back of the skirt member enables the stopper portion to be pushed tightly into a bottle opening, with the skirt member thereof becoming an outer cylindrical member concentric with and close to but slightly spaced from the upper cylindrical member, so as to tightly seal the opening of the bottle against pressure exerted from Within or from outside the bottle.

The present invention relates in general to improvements in or relating to a stopper of a bottle for storing foods, medicines and the like. The material to be stored in the bottle is not limited to these items, but includes, in addition thereto, liquids, viscous fluids, powders and granular substances of all kinds.

For instance, it relates to bottles for storing alcoholic drinks, such as Japanese sake, whisky, etc., soft drinks, such as cola, powdered essence of juice, condiments and the like.

In order to be really useful as a stopper of a bottle, it is required that the stopper have a structure enabling it to keep the contents of the bottle for a long time without changing quality, that the method for use be simple, and that the cost of manufacture be low.

The bottle-stoppers generally used in the past were mostly cylindrical cork plugs, similarly shaped plugs made of synthetic resin, or crown bottle caps (shrunk cap). Although these bottle-stoppers serve to block air communication between the inside and outside of the bottle, when the pressure at the inside of the bottle becomes higher than the pressure at the outside, i.e., the atmospheric pressure, a force pushing the stopper outwardly of the bottle is generated. For instance, when a fermentative substance or the like is placed in a bottle, the phenomenon becomes so marked that the function of the bottlestopper cannot be achieved. On the contrary, when the pressure at the inside of the bottle becomes lower than the pressure at the outside, atmospheric air flows into the bottle so that it may possibly occur that the contents are changed in quality by the dust, bacteria, etc., contained in the atmospheric air.

3,405,830 Patented Oct. 15, 1968 For example, this may occur when a bottle is filled with a substance such as alcohol, which shows a large volume change due to a temperature change, and the pressure inside the bottle is lowered by the decrease of temperature.

It is a principal object of the present invention to provide a bottle-stopper which acts to automatically increase the contact pressure between the bottle and the stopper when a pressure difference arises between the inside and outside of the bottle due to the property of the substance in the bottle or a change of the atmospheric temperature.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a bottle-stopper such that the contact pressure between the bottle and the stopper is directly proportional to the pressure difference between the inside and outside of the bottle. 7

Further object of the invention is to provide a bottlestopper such that the attachment and detachment of the stopper to the bottle is easy and the process for manufacture of the stopper is also simple.

According to one feature of the present invention, there is provided a bottle-stopper comprising a disc made of synthetic resin, a cylinder formed on the lower surface of said disc, and an outwardly flared skirt formed at the lower end of said cylinder as an extension thereof, said disc, cylinder and flared skirt being integrally formed of flexible synthetic resin in such manner that when the flared skirt is turned up towards the outside of the cylinder to form an outer cylinder, an upwardly opened gap space may be formed between the inner and outer cylinders.

These and other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent upon a perusal of the following specification taken in connection with the accompanying drawings wherein:

FIGS. 1 to 7 illustrate the most representative first embodiment of the present invention, and

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the bottle stopper,

FIG. 2 is a transverse cross-section view along the line II-II in FIG. 1,

FIG. 3 is a longitudinal cross-section View along the line IIIIII in FIG. 1,

FIG. 4 is a transverse cross-section view along the line IVIV in FIG. 3,

FIG. 5 is a longitudinal cross-section view showing the state before the bottle-stopper in FIG. 1 is fitted to a bottle,

FIG. 6 is a longitudinal cross-section view showing the state after fitting,

FIG. 7 is a longitudinal cross-section view showing the state upon removing the bottle-stopper,

FIGS. 8 and 9 illustrate a second embodiment of the invention, and

FIG. 8 is a perspective view of the bottle-stopper with a part removed therefrom,

FIG. 9 is a longitudinal cross-section view showing the state where the stopper is fitted to a bottle,

FIGS. 10 and 11 illustrate a third embodiment of the invention, and

FIG. 10 is a perspective view of the bottle stopper with a part removed therefrom,

FIG. 11 is a longitudinal cross-section view showing the state where the stopper is fitted to a bottle,

FIG. 12 illustrates a fourth embodiment of the invention, as a longitudinal cross-section view showing the stopper fitted to a bottle.

In the bottle-stopper shown in FIGS. '1 to 4, a cylinder V port that atmospheric -resulting in damage in quality of the substance within 2 is formed coaxially and integrally on a disc 1, the lower end of the cylinder being opened and provided with an outwardly flared skirt 3 as its extension, and on the inner surface of the flared skirt 3 are formed annular ridges 4. In addition, a cover cylinder 5 is formed integrally with the disc 1 with its upper end arranged along the outer periphery of the disc 1, and on the inner surface of the upper portion of the cover cylinder 5 are formed an annular recess 6 and an annular ridge 7 which are given a dimension and a shape such that they may tightly fit to the annular ridge and recess 9, 10 respectively on the outer periphery of the port of the bottle 8.

Also on the inner surface of the cover cylinder 5 are formed cutting recesses 10' having a shape as shown by dotted lines in FIG. 1. These cutting recesses may be formed only by reducing the thickness 2 of the cover cylinder 5 at these portions to the thickness t, which enables them to be broken easily as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3. At the lower end of the cover cylinder 5 is formed a notch 11, and from the corners 12, 13 of the notch 11 extend cutting recesses 10 obliquely upward so that a tongueshaped piece 14 may be formed therebetween. The upper ends of said two cutting recesses 10 extending obliquely upward are connected by a horizontal cutting recess 10" formed along the almost entire periphery of the cover cylinder 5. From a point near to the notch 11 on the lower edge of the cover cylinder 5 is formed another cutting recess 15, the upper end of which does not reach said cutting recess 10". Between the cutting recess 10' and the other cutting recess 15 and at the notch '11 there is formed a projecting piece 16.

Upon fitting the bottle-stopper accordinug to the present invention to the port of the bottle 8, at first the lower portion of the cover cylinder 5 is fitted around the outer periphery of the bottle with the lower end of the flared skirt 3 opposed to the upper end of the bottle 8 as shown in FIG. 5. Then if the disc 1 is pressed downwardly, the flared skirt 3 is turned up and becomes an outer cylinder 3 with a gap space 17 formed between the inner cylinder 2 and the outer cylinder 3 as shown in FIG. 6. Also the annular recess 6 and the annular ridge 7 formed on the inner surface of the cover cylinder 5 respectively fit to the ridge and recess 9 on the outer periphery of the bottle 8. This state of the bottle-stopper is a sealing state.

Under this state, if the pressure pi within the bottle 8 becomes higher than the pressure p0 at the outside of the bottle 8, the stopper tends to slip out of the bottle 8 due to the pressure difference po-pi. However, since the inner pressure pi acts upon the inner surface of the inner cylinder 2 perpendicularly, this pressure pi is also transmitted to the outer cylinder 3 integrally formed with the inner cylinder 2, and further presses the outer cylinder 3 against the inner wall surface of the bottle 8.

Consequently, the contact pressure between the stopper and the bottle 8 is increased, and in proportion thereto the frictional force between the stopper and the bottle is increased so that the stopper becomes hard to slip out of the bottle 8.

On the contrary, if the pressure pi within the bottle is reduced and becomes lower than the pressure pi within the gap space 17, the pressure difference pc-pi therebetween serves to press the outer cylinder 3' against the inner wall surface of the bottle 8 so as to tightly seal therebetween, and thereby the air, bacteria, etc., contained in the gap space 7 are automatically prevented from invading the bottle.

In addition, if the inner surface of the cover cylinder 5 and the outer surface of the bottle 8 are tightly pressed to each other, it is possible to block the dust and the like in the air which tend to invade the gap space 17 from the outside of the bottle 8.

In this way, even if a pressure difference should occur between the inside and outside of the bottle 8, there would be no chance that the stopper would slip out of the bottle air would invade the bottle,

the bottle.

Then, upon removing the stopper from the bottle 8, one pulls out the part of the projecting piece 16 by holding that piece with the thumb and the forefinger to at first cut (tear) along the cutting recesses II, 15. When the cutting (tearing) reaches almost near the end of the cutting recess 15, the projecting piece 16 becomes separated from the cover cylinder 5 over a considerable length, so that one can rehold this part over a sufficient length to further pull and tear out, and thus the cover cylinder 5 may be completely removed along thecutting recess 10".

Then, as the-tongue-shaped piece 14 remains projecting if one pulls out this piece in the direction shown by arrow A14, while holding this piece as shown in FIG. 7, the stopper may be completely removed from the bottle 8.

In this connection, if the contents remain in the bottle and thus one need to reuse the bottle-stopper, the bottlestopper in the state shown in FIG. 7, that is, in the state having the cover cylinder removed, is fitted to the bottle.

Accordingly, after the bottle is once opened, due to the fact that the cover cylinder 5 is torn off, one can easily see that the bottle has been once opened.

Other embodiments of the present invention which do not require the cover cylinder 5, are illustrated in FIGS. 8 to 12.

The bottle-stopper shown in FIGS. 8 and 9 has a portion 18 formed along the periphery of the disc 1, while the bottle-stopper according to the embodiment shown in FIGS. 10 and 11 is completely lacking in such a portion.

Furthermore, in the embodiment shown in FIG. 12, on the part of the lower surface of the disc 1 that makes contact with the upper edge 8' of the bottle 8 and on the part that makes contact with the inner wall surface of the bottle 8, are formed ridges and recesses 19, 20. In this case, it is possible to realize tighter sealing between the upper edge 8 of the bottle 8 and the lower surface of the disc 1 and between the inner surface of the bottle 8 and the outer peripherical surface of the bottle stopper. At 21 are shown a plurality of ridges formed longitudinally on the inner surface of the inner cylinder 2, which serve to enhance the rigidity of the inner cylinder 2.

While I have described the invention above in connection with a specific bottle-stopper and its modifications, all matter contained in the specifications or shown in the accompanying drawings is made only by way of example and not as a limitation to the scope of my invention.

What is claimed is:

1. A bottle-stopper molded integrally from flexible and resilient material, comprising a cover portion including a disc; a stopper portion including an upper cylindrical member of less diameter than said disc and depending from the lower surface of said disc concentrically therewith and terminating in an outwardly flared skirt member, the transition from cylindrical member to skirt member being marked by an abrupt change in wall thickness, thereby establishing a circumferential line of bend on which said skirt member bends backwardly to provide a substantially corresponding and concentric outer cylindrical member close to but slightly spaced from the upper cylindrical member when the bottle-stopper is applied to a bottle in a manner such that said skirt member bears against the bottle margin surrounding the bottle opening as the bottle-stopper is pushed into place; and a plurality of annular ridges formed about the inner peripheral surface of said skirt member, the uppermost of which provides the circumferential line of bend.

2. A bottle-stopped as claimed in claim 1, in which an outer cover cylinder depends from the outer periphery of the disc, and cutting recesses are formed along said cover cylinder, from the lower edge thereof upwardly, to provide for easy removal of the bottle-stopper from a bottle.

3. A bottle-stopper as claimed in claim 2, in which at References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 6 FOREIGN PATENTS 2/ 1952 France. 11/1954 France. 9/1963 France. 4/ 195 7 Germany.

OTHER REFERENCES 1,107,541, May 1961, Germany, Fischback 215 (Fin) (German printed application).

3,038,624 6/1962 Wieckmann 215-41 10 3,200,981 8/1965 Harding 215--41 3,275,178 9/1966 Lovell et a1 215 40 DONALD F. NORTON, Przmary Exammer. 

